J. Child Psychol. Psychiat. Vol. 42, No. 4, pp.

551–556, 2001
Cambridge University Press
' 2001 Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved
0021–9630\01 $15n00j0n00

Individual Differences in Cognitive Planning on the Tower of Hanoi

Task : Neuropsychological Maturity or Measurement Error ?
D. V. M. Bishop
University of Oxford, U.K.

G. Aamodt-Leeper, C. Creswell, R. McGurk, and D. H. Skuse

Institute of Child Health, London, U.K.

The Tower of Hanoi (ToH) task was given to 238 children aged from 7 to 15 years, and 20
adults. Individual variation within an age band was substantial. ToH score did not correlate
significantly with Verbal IQ, nor with ability to inhibit a prepotent response. We
readministered the ToH to 45 children after 30 to 40 days. The test-retest correlation of n5 is
low in relation to accepted psychometric standards, though at least as high as reliability of
the related Tower of London (ToL) in adults. The reasons for low reliability remain unclear ;
task novelty did not seem to be involved, as children did not improve on retest. We conclude
that it is not safe to use this test to index integrity or maturation of underlying neurological
systems in children. We compared our results with three published studies using the ToL
with children, and found similar levels of performance on problems involving the same
number of moves. Another study using automated ToL obtained much poorer scores,
suggesting that computerised presentation may impair children’s performance.

Keywords : Assessment, executive function, psychometrics.

Abbreviations : ToH : Tower of Hanoi ; ToL : Tower of London.

The ability to plan ahead to solve a problem is an
executive function that is thought to depend on integrity
of the frontal lobes. The Tower of Hanoi (ToH, see Fig.
1) has been used to assess this skill, and gives a
quantitative index of planning ability because one can
easily specify the number of steps that are involved in the
solution to a problem. Using a simplified version of this
task which he termed the Tower of London (ToL : see
Fig. 2), Shallice (1982) demonstrated that certain patients
with frontal lesions showed pronounced impairments in
planning that could not be accounted for in terms of any
more basic perceptual or memory problems. Further
studies, some of which have used a computerised version
of the ToL or ToH, have both replicated findings of
deficits in patients with frontal lesions (Owen, Downes,
Sahakian, Polkey, & Robbins, 1990 ; Goel & Grafman,
1995), and also demonstrated frontal activation on PET
imaging when normal volunteers perform this task (Baker
et al., 1996 ; Morris, Ahmed, Syed, & Toone, 1993)
Impaired functioning on Tower tasks has been found
in various clinical groups, including people with autism
or Asperger syndrome (Ozonoff, Pennington, & Rogers,
1991) and children with intellectual disabilities (Borys,
Spitz, & Dorans, 1982). Three papers have reported
developmental trends for normal children on different
versions of the ToL (Anderson, Anderson, & Lajoie,
Requests for reprints to : Dorothy Bishop, Department of
Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks
Road, Oxford, OX1 3UD, U.K.
(E-mail : dorothy.bishop!psy.ox.ac.uk).
1996 ; Krikorian, Bartok, & Gay, 1994 ; Luciana &
Nelson, 1998). Intriguingly, whereas most cognitive tasks
show improvement both with age and with higher IQ, it
has been suggested that the ToH is related only to age,
and uncorrelated with IQ (Welsh, Pennington, &
Grossier, 1991).
However, just as interest is mounting in assessing
planning abilities, questions have been raised about the
psychometric characteristics of Tower tasks. First, there
is the issue of validity. As noted above, these tasks have
traditionally been viewed as indexing the ability to plan
ahead, with difficulty depending on the memory load,
which increases with the number of moves that are
required to solve the problem (Shallice, 1982). However,
Goel and Grafman (1995) drew attention to another facet
of these tasks, the extent to which they require the person
to inhibit a prepotent tendency to move a disc or ball
immediately to its final peg position. They argued that the
ToH task is especially difficult for people with frontal
lobe lesions because it requires them to see and resolve a
conflict between a long-term goal and an immediate
subgoal, whereas the ToL task is much easier in this
regard. Burgess (1997), in contrast, suggested that what
makes these planning tasks so difficult for people with
frontal lesions may be their novelty. On this view, once
the person has had experience with the task and worked
out an optimal strategy, performance is likely to improve.
Humes, Welsh, Retzlaff, and Cookson (1997) noted
that little was known about the reliability of Tower tasks.
They found only a weak intercorrelation (r l n37) be-
tween the ToH and ToL tasks, which they attributed to
the low reliability of the ToL, as assessed by an index of
internal consistency (Cronbach α was n25 for ToL vs. n90

551
552 D. V. M. BISHOP et al.

test-retest interval, (and indeed, obtained relatively high

Figure 1. The Tower of Hanoi puzzle, showing apparatus
consisting of three vertical posts, and three doughnut-like discs,
of different colour and size, that fit on the pegs. The testee is
shown the model array and must duplicate the arrangement on
a second apparatus in the minimum number of moves, while
obeying the following rules : (1) only one disc may be moved at
a time ; (2) a larger disc must not be placed on top of a smaller
one ; (3) discs may not be placed on the table. The illustration
shows a 5-move problem.
reliability). Other research that found significant im-
provement on retesting was a study by Aman, Roberts,
and Pennington (1998), who administered the test to
children aged from 10 to 14 years on two occasions 1
week apart.
In this study, our main aim was to assess developmental
trends and test-retest reliability for a ToH task. We also
explored sex differences in performance, and correlations
between ToH, verbal ability (which might be regarded as
important for formulating a plan of action and keeping
this in mind), and another executive function measure
testing ability to inhibit a prepotent response. We used a
modification of the original ToH task, as described by
Borys et al. (1982), as data from Krikorian et al. (1994)
and Anderson et al. (1996) suggested that the simpler
ToL task gives ceiling effects in older children. We also
extended the difficulty level by incorporating problems
that involved four discs, and required eight or nine moves
for their solution. To simplify administration and scoring,
we adopted a self-terminating procedure analogous to
that used in the well-known Digit Span test (Wechsler,
1992). The child was presented with two problems at each
level of difficulty, and was deemed to have solved a
problem if it was completed successfully in the minimum
number of moves on two out of three trials. If two
consecutive problems were failed, then testing termin-
ated, and the subsequent problems were scored as failed.
This procedure allowed each child’s performance to be
represented by a single number that corresponded to the
highest level of difficulty problem that was solved.

Figure 2. The Tower of London puzzle, devised by Shallice
(1982) to involve similar reasoning as in the Tower of Hanoi but
in an easier format. Rather than discs of different size,
perforated balls of different colours are used, and the pegs are of
different lengths. The illustration shows a 4-move problem.
Method
Participants
Children were recruited from three primary schools and one
secondary school in London. These schools were selected
because their pupils came from a wide range of social
backgrounds. The test battery was administered to all children
whose parents gave consent for participation, with the exception
of children who did not have English as a first language.
Thirteen children with estimated short form Verbal IQ below 70
were excluded, giving a total sample of 238 children. Sample
characteristics are shown in Table 1. The smaller sample size for

for ToH). Burgess (1997) noted the relatively weak Table 1

intercorrelations between different measures of executive Constitution of Sample in Terms of Age, Sex, and Verbal
function including the ToL, and Lowe and Rabbitt (1998) Ability
showed that test-retest reliability for elderly volunteers Short form Verbal IQ
completing the computerised ToL ranged from n26 to n60,
depending on the performance index adopted, with Age range N Mean SD
reliability overall falling below conventionally accepted
levels. Gnys and Willis (1991) found higher levels of test- 7–8 yr
Boys 31 99n5 16n76
retest reliability (r l n72) for 5-year-old children on a
Girls 35 103n5 18n46
noncomputerised ToH task, but the test-retest interval
was only 25 minutes. 9–10 yr
Boys 39 95n1 15n22
The reasons for poor test-retest reliability over longer
Girls 44 95n1 15n35
intervals are unclear. Lowe and Rabbitt (1998) noted that
if, as suggested by Burgess (1997), task novelty is a critical 11–12 yr
Boys 26 99n2 8n63
factor, then poor reliability is to be expected if a subset of
Girls 30 102n8 14n98
individuals show dramatic improvement as they develop
a strategy. If this is so, a general improvement in task 13–15 yr
Boys 18 96n2 12n89
performance should be seen on retest. This is exactly what
Girls 15 90n1 16n70
was seen in the study by Gnys and Willis (1991) on 5-
year-old children, where the mean score on retest was Adults
Male 5 113n4 6n66
more than 1 SD higher on retest than on first test.
Female 15 105n8 9n47
However, as noted above, that study used a very short
 TOWER OF HANOI TASK
the 13–15-year-old age group reflects the fact that it is difficult
to schedule research testing to fit in with a school curriculum
once children enter secondary school. A group of 20 adults aged
from 18 to 26 years, recruited from hospital staff, was also tested
to provide an indication of adult levels of performance on this
test.
Procedure
Children were tested individually in a quiet room at their
school in one or two sessions lasting 30 minutes. Forty-five
children aged from 7 to 10 years were retested on the Tower of
Hanoi task after an interval of 30 to 40 days.
Core Test Battery
Children were given the Vocabulary and Similarities subtests
from the Wechsler Scale of Intelligence for Children-3rd UK
edition, WISC-III (Wechsler, 1992) to provide an estimate of
short form Verbal IQ.
The Same-Opposite World subtest from the Children’s Test
of Everyday Attention (TEA-Ch : Manly, Robertson,
Anderson, & Nimmo-Smith, 1998) was administered to 147 of
the children and all of the adults. This subtest, which has
similarities to the Day-Night test of Gerstadt, Hong, and
Diamond (1994), is designed to assess the ability to inhibit a
prepotent response, which is seen as a critical component of
executive function. In this test, the testee sees a trail of squares,
each containing the written digit 1 or 2. The test starts with a
‘‘ Same World ’’ trial, in which the tester points to each square in
turn, and the task is to name the digit in the square as quickly
as possible. The tester’s finger moves on to the next square as
soon as the correct name has been supplied, but remains on the
same square if an error is made. A practice run is given before
the test proper. The time taken to complete the trail is recorded.
On the next trial, the tester explains that this is the ‘‘ Opposite
World ’’, where the task is to say ‘‘ one ’’ when the digit is 2, and
‘‘ two ’’ when the digit is 1. A practice run is first administered,
and then the test proper. The test continues with one more
‘‘ Opposite World ’’ trial, and finishes with another ‘‘ Same
World ’’ trial. Time to complete each trial is converted to a rate
measure (squares per second), averaged for the two ‘‘ Same
World ’’ trials and the two ‘‘ Opposite World ’’ trials, and the
difference taken. Scores for ‘‘ Same World ’’, ‘‘ Opposite
World ’’, and the difference score were converted to age-adjusted
z-scores. Because the test was still in the process of stan-
dardisation at the time we conducted our study, we used our
own sample as the basis for deriving norms.
Tower of Hanoi Test
Apparatus. Two sets of a wooden apparatus for the ToH
test were constructed according to the specifications given by
Borys et al. (1982), except that a fourth size of disc was added so
that more complex problems could be administered. Thus the
apparatus consisted of a board containing 3 upright rods,
6n5 cm apart, and discs of diameter 2 cm, 3n5 cm, 4n5 cm, and
7 cm, coloured yellow, green, blue, and red respectively. The
thickness of the discs was 1n7 cm, and each contained a central
hole 1 cm in diameter, so that the discs could be fitted over the
rods.
Test procedure. The child was given problems of increasing
complexity, starting with 3-move problems, and increasing up
to 9-move problems, until two consecutive problems were
failed. The arrangements for each problem are shown in the
Appendix.
At the start of the test, the tester sat facing the child, with one
ToH apparatus in front of her containing a two-disc tower on
the rightmost peg. The other identical apparatus was in front of
the child, with one disc on each of the three pegs.
The tester said : ‘‘ In this game, I will show you an ar-
rangement of these discs on pegs, and what you have to do is to
553
make an arrangement that looks just the same. That is not as
easy as it sounds, because there are certain rules you have to
follow. First of all, you are not allowed to put any of the discs
on the table. When you let go of a disc, it must be on one of the
pegs. Second, you can only move one disc at a time. And third,
you can never put a bigger disc on top of a smaller disc, like this
(demonstrating WRONG move). That is NOT allowed. You
can only make moves like this ’’ (demonstrating RIGHT move).
The tester then demonstrated right and wrong moves, asking
the child ‘‘ would I be allowed to do this ? ’’, including putting
discs of right or wrong size on pegs, putting a disc on the table
and moving two discs at once, until it was established that the
child understood the rules.
She then said : ‘‘ Now we are ready to begin. ’’ She presented
the first three-move (two disc) problem, by arranging her own
apparatus in the start position, and the child’s apparatus in the
end position (see Appendix), and asked child to move the discs
on his or her apparatus to give the same arrangement of discs.
As can be seen in the Appendix, there were two problems, A
and B, at each number of moves. To be credited as passing a
given problem, the child had to solve it twice in the minimum
number of moves. The child was given up to three trials per
problem. After the first successful trial on a problem, the tester
said ‘‘ Good ! Show me again ’’, to indicate that the child should
repeat the successful performance, rather than adopting a
different solution. The test stopped when this criterion of 2\3
attempts correct was not reached on two successive problems.
When moving on to problems involving three discs, the tester
said : ‘‘ These are getting harder now. It is important to think out
how you are going to do it before you start ’’. For problems
where the end state involved placing all discs on the rightmost
peg (i.e., the first problem at each move length), the examiner
was careful to indicate on her apparatus the rod that the child’s
discs had to go on, to ensure that there was no doubt as to which
way round the tower should be constructed. In each case, the
child’s tower was to be a direct match of the adult’s tower, with
both child and adult towers having the discs on the rod that was
rightmost from the child’s point of view.
The tester counted the number of moves made by the child,
and noted it on the record form under the relevant trial number
(see Appendix). If the child moved a disc to another peg and
then had a change of mind and moved it back without letting go
of it, this was counted as two moves. If the child violated one of
the rules, the tester gave a reminder of the rule and restarted the
trial, counting this as a failed trial. Rule violations (disc placed
on table ; two discs moved at once ; larger disc put on smaller)
were recorded.
The child’s final score was the highest level of task successfully
completed (in terms of number of moves), with an additional
half point being added if both tasks at this level of moves were
passed. Thus a child who passed both 3-move problems, one 4-
move problem, and both 5-move problems, and failed both 6-
move problems, would achieve a score of 5n5 (highest level
passed l 5, plus n5 for passing both problems at this level). A
child who passed both 3-move problems, passed only the second
4-move problem, and then failed both 5-move problems would
be given a score of 4n0.
Results
Mean scores on Tower of Hanoi are shown in Table 2.
A regression analysis was carried out to investigate age
effects on performance. Analysis of age trends from 7
years to adulthood is complicated by the fact that we
would not expect a linear relationship. For most cognitive
functions, growth is more rapid in the early childhood,
and then slows down, with stability being achieved by
young adulthood. There is no reason to expect growth in
executive functions in adulthood, and within the adult
group, the correlation between age and ToH was non-
significant (r l n137, df l 18, n.s.). Therefore all adults
554 D. V. M. BISHOP et al.
Table 2
Mean (SD) Scores on ToH Task by Age and Sex (Possible Range 3 to 9n5)
Male
Age range Mean SD
7–8 yr 5n6 1n44
9–10 yr 6n9 1n75
11–12 yr 7n9 1n61
13–15 yr 6n8 1n90
Adult 9n0 0n61
were arbitrarily assigned the age of 18 years. The
correlation between log age and ToH score (r l n370,
df l 255) was only marginally higher than the corre-
lation with raw age (r l n366, df l 255), but the former
was preferred for use in a regression equation as provid-
ing a more plausible developmental model.
The regression equation relating age to ToH score was :
y l 2n72nxk6n589, where y is the predicted score, and x is
the natural log of age in months. By subtracting the
predicted from obtained ToH score, and dividing by the
RMS residual (l 1n646), we can convert ToH scores to
age-adjusted z-scores. We considered whether to derive a
separate regression equation for males and females, but
although there was a statistically significant effect of
gender on ToH z-score, males : mean l 0n15, SD l
1n033 ; females : mean lk0n13, SD l 0n953 ; F (1, 255) l
4n95, p l n027, the effect size was so small (η# l n019) that
it did not seem justified using separate norms for boys
and girls.
Rule-breaking errors occurred on only a small minority
of trials : over the whole test, the average number of such
errors was 0n358 in the 7–8-year-olds, falling to 0n177 for
the 13–15-year-olds. Only nine children in the whole
study made more than one rule-breaking error.
ToH z-score did not correlate significantly with either
short form Verbal IQ (r l n089, df l 255) or the z-scores
derived from the Same-Opposite World subtest from
TEA-Ch (Same rate : r l n139 ; Opposite rate, r l n136 ;
difference score r lkn014, df l 163).
Test-retest reliability for the 45 children tested on two
occasions was r l n528 for raw scores, and r l n508 for
age-adjusted z-scores. Although these values are stat-
istically significant (p n001), they are low in relation to
conventional psychometric criteria. As noted above, one
reason for low reliability would be if task novelty were a
factor, with some children developing a strategy for
performing the task as they became more experienced.
Although it was the impression of the testers that some
children suddenly got the point of the test, and then
showed a dramatic improvement, overall, scores for the
two test sessions did not differ significantly : mean for the
first session was 5n92, SD l 1n56, and for the second
session, 6n13, SD l 1n83 ; F (1, 44) 1. There was a
suggestion that older children might be more susceptible
to learning effects : for children aged 7–8 years, mean
score was 5n72 (SD l 1n38) in session 1 and 5n78 (SD l
1n94) in session 2, an improvement of only 0n06 points,
whereas for those aged 9 to 10 years, the mean score was
6n14 (SD l 1n72) for session 1 and 6n50 for session 2
(SD l 1n67), a gain of 0n36 points. However, this differ-
ence was not statistically significant, with the inter-
action between age and session having a corresponding
F-ratio of less than 1. The test-retest reliabilities did not
differ significantly for the older and younger children ;
Female Total
Mean SD Mean SD
6n0 1n33 5n8 1n39
5n9 1n60 6n3 1n74
6n7 1n74 7n2 1n77
6n7 1n36 6n8 1n65
8n1 1n65 8n3 1n50
under 9 years : r l n457, df l 21, 9 years and over :
r l n594, df l 20 ; test for difference in correlations,
z l 0n47 (Guilford & Fruchter, 1973).
Comparison with Developmental Studies Using ToL
Task
The question arises as to how typical our findings are.
Studies by Krikorian et al. (1994) and Anderson et al.
(1996) presented normative data on the ToL task (non-
computerised version) for children aged from 7 to 13
years. Direct comparison of results is impossible because
different numbers of problems and different scoring
methods were used. Also, both the ToL studies used only
3-, 4- and 5-move problems. However, we can consider
sensitivity to age in each study in terms of effect size, d,
which is a unit-free measurement (Cohen, 1977). For each
adjacent year band from 7 to 13 years, d was computed as
the difference between mean scores divided by the SD of
the younger group. The mean value of d, which gives an
index of the average increase in score for each year of age,
was n10 for the current study, which is similar to the value
of n16 from the Krikorian et al. study. The mean for the
Anderson et al. study was twice as large at n31. The
probable reason for this difference is that Anderson et al.
used a scoring method that took into account time to
complete each problem, whereas the current study and
that of Krikorian et al. considered only accuracy. Neither
ToL study found the drop in score that we observed for
the 13–15-year-olds relative to younger children ; it is
likely that this simply reflects sampling error on a measure
where age effects are small. Overall, it is noteworthy that
the effect sizes for age are relatively small, compared with
those for the other measures in our study : vocabulary
(n47), similarities (n35), TEA-Ch same world (n55), TEA-
Ch opposite world (n48). Thus on the ToH, variation
within an age group is substantial in relation to score
increases from one year band to the next. Coupled with
our finding of low reliability, this suggests that age effects
may be masked by other random factors that affect
children’s performance from day to day.
Luciana and Nelson (1998) used a computerised
version of the ToL, which included 3-, 4- and 5-move
problems, with children aged from 4 to 8 years. The
computer screen is divided into a top and bottom half,
with the goal position being shown on the top half of the
screen, and the initial position on the bottom half. The
child moves the coloured ‘‘ balls ’’ on the bottom half of
the display using a touchscreen, so as to make the bottom
display look the same as the top display. The displays are
presented in such a way that they can be perceived as
stacks of coloured balls, held in stockings and suspended
from a beam. Luciana and Nelson reported their data
separately for each level of problem difficulty, and direct
 TOWER OF HANOI TASK
comparison with the current study is difficult. However,
there is a suggestion in their data that the computerised
version of ToL may be substantially harder for children
than versions using a more conventional apparatus.
Luciana and Nelson reported that around 20 % of 8-year-
olds, and somewhat fewer 7-year-olds, achieved
minimum-move solutions on 4- and 5-move problems. In
the current study, 70 % of 7- to 8-year-olds succeeded on
both problems at the 4-move level, and 47 % succeeded
on both problems at the 5-move level. (The percentages
of children of this age succeeding on at least one of the
two problems at a given level were even higher : 97 % for
4-move problems and 74 % for 5-move problems.) The
apparatus-based ToL studies do not report data sep-
arately for different levels of task difficulty, but a
consideration of mean scores suggests their findings were
more comparable to those of the current study than to
those of Luciana and Nelson. In the study by Krikorian
et al. (1994) the mean percentage score for 7- and 8-year-
olds was around 80 % on a task that consisted pre-
dominantly of 4- and 5-move problems. Anderson et al.
(1996) used only 4- and 5-move problems, and reported
scores of over 75 % correct for 7- to 8-year-olds.
Discussion
Overall, these results with normally developing chil-
dren do not offer much encouragement for those wishing
to use the ToH as a clinical index of executive function.
Although the test-retest reliability may be adequate for
demonstrating group differences in experimental studies,
as when a clinical group is compared to a control group,
it is too low for confident assessment of individual cases.
We cannot attribute poor test-retest correlations to
restriction of range, as there is large variation between
children even within a single year band. We considered
whether low reliability might arise from the task losing its
novelty value on retest, leading to improved performance,
but there was no evidence for this, because average scores
on retest were closely similar to those obtained on initial
test. In this regard, our study is discrepant with work by
Gnys and Willis (1991) and Aman et al. (1998) : it is
possible that practice effects occur but then dissipate with
time—our test-retest interval was much longer than those
used in these studies. Low reliability is not specific to
children : indeed, the values of test-retest correlation
found here are similar to those reported by Lowe and
Rabbitt (1998) for elderly volunteers using the automated
ToL test.
Would we have obtained stronger age effects by taking
speed as well as accuracy of performance into account ?
There were three principal reasons why we did not do
this. First, unless one has some baseline measure of speed
of performance when planning is not implicated (as in the
computerised ToL), then one risks confounding executive
function with motor skill. Second, if speed is incorporated
in the scoring, one then has to decide whether to
encourage participants to work quickly, and run the risk
of inducing an unreflective approach to the task, or
whether to leave participants to work at their own pace,
thus penalising those who proceed cautiously. Third, it is
unclear how to combine speed and accuracy in a scoring
system : for instance, would a person who solved two 4-
move problems quickly but then failed both 5-move
problems be given more credit than someone who failed
one 4-move problem and then passed a 5-move problem
555
slowly ? It may be that a better scoring system can be
devised, but it is unlikely that our system was simply too
insensitive to pick up age effects : the problem was not
that children did not vary, but rather than the variance
within each age group was substantial in relation to the
age effect size.
We found no support for the notion that ability to
inhibit a prepotent response is a major determinant of
ToH performance in normally developing children : the
correlations with the Same-Opposite world task, which is
designed to assess this aspect of executive function, were
close to zero. In future work, it would be interesting to
consider alternative explanations for individual differ-
ences in ToH performance ; for instance, Pennington,
Bennetto, McAleer, and Roberts (1996) have emphasised
the importance of working memory for executive tasks.
This is particularly the case for the ToH, where the need
to hold a sequential plan in memory increases with task
difficulty. It is possible, also, that more complex in-
hibitory processes are implicated than are tapped by the
Same-Opposite World task. In the Opposite World task,
the participant must simply maintain a response set that
involves doing the opposite of what is customary. In the
ToH, it is necessary to shift continuously between
subgoals in order to arrive at a final goal, and this can
mean inhibiting a subgoal (e.g., get the red disc on the
rightmost peg) that was previously active.
The low reliability of the ToH task is disappointing for
those hoping to use this task for individual assessment.
Luciana and Nelson (1998) argued because one cannot
readily apply brain imaging studies to normal children,
one can adopt the empirical strategy of selecting be-
havioural measures with reliable neural correlates (in
terms of lesion studies, or imaging of healthy adults), and
then ‘‘ attribute children’s successful performance on
these measures to the functional maturation of the brain
regions with which they have been experimentally cor-
related ’’ (p. 273). Unfortunately, our study, taken in
conjunction with the evidence reviewed by Burgess (1997)
and Lowe and Rabbitt (1998), suggests that factors other
than regional brain development may exert so powerful
an influence on performance of executive function tasks
that they swamp any variation due to individual differ-
ences in underlying neurology.
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Manuscript accepted 9 January 2001

Appendix
Record form for Tower of Hanoi task, showing the con-
figuration for each problem. The three dashes denote the three
rods, with the letters indicating the discs. The number of moves
taken by the child on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd trials of each problem is
recorded in the box against that problem. At each level, problem
A is given first, and then problem B. For each problem, the child
is administered up to three trials, until two trials have been
completed in the minimum number of moves. The test stops
when this criterion of 2\3 attempts correct is not reached on
two successive problems, and the child is awarded a score corre-
sponding to the highest level (number of moves) passed, with
n5 added if both problems at that level were passed. Two
children who failed both 3-move problems were given a score of
2n0. Thus the total score could range from 2n0 to 9n5.

Problem A Problem B
configuration* trial configuration* trial
start end 1 2 3 start end 1 2 3
S ––S M ––M
3 move M–– ––M L–– ––L
––S ––S S ––S
4 move LSM ––M M –S
LM– ––L L–– –ML
––S ––S S ––S
5 move ––M ––M M ––M
LMS ––L L–– SML
––S ––S S ––S
6 move M ––M M ––M
L– S ––L L–– S–L
7 move S ––S S ––S
M ––M M S
L–– ––L L–– ML–
8 move ––S ––S S ––S
S ––M M –GS
M ––L L –GM
LG– ––G G–– –GL
9 move ––S ––S S ––S
––M M ––M
M ––L L –GM
LGS ––G G–– SGL
*S = small; M = medium; L = large; G = giant